This is no time for moral victories, but if we’re being fair to the Toronto Maple Leafs, they submitted their best effort in two weeks. Moral victories are inapplicable, and the Dallas Stars still skated away with a 5-1 victory. It was a road trip from hell for the Maple Leafs, and as we’ve alluded to before, it may spell the end of Craig Berube’s tenure as head coach.

There was an air of trepidation pre-game, as the Leafs entered Sunday’s contest on the second night on a back-to-back, against the NHL’s second-ranked team. Toronto held a 25 percent chance to make the playoffs via The Athletic’s model and that may seem generous now.

It may have been poor timing for the struggling Maple Leafs to run into a powerhouse Stars team, but professional sports are unforgiving. Toronto controlled the run of play, and while Auston Matthews and William Nylander showed some improvement, none of the team’s leadership group made a dent on the scoresheet, save for Morgan Rielly’s assist on Scott Laughton’s goal. Laughton’s marker was one of the few enduring positive moments from a game where the Maple Leafs displayed some good process, but no one cares about moral victories after a 5-1 loss.

There is some reticence to dismiss Craig Berube from all parties involved. Berube certainly wants a longer run at correcting the course for the Maple Leafs, while Brad Treliving afforded him a vote of confidence on November 18. We’re not heartless, and no one wants to advocate for someone to lose their job, especially nearing Christmas, but it’s getting very difficult to imagine how Berube remains behind the bench for the duration of the calendar year, if not sooner.

And it’s tough taking this position on a night where the Maple Leafs displayed some good processes, extended the cycle and kept a potent Stars’ attack largely at bay, until the structure began to erode in the dying minutes of the game. Berube has been affable and he’s well-liked within the organization, but he’s not coming close to extracting the maximal value from this lineup.

We do have one pre-game criticism: it made no sense to take 20-year-old rookie Easton Cowan out of the lineup. Cowan is one of the few bright spots on the Maple Leafs, as the team controls a 53 percent share of the expected goals and a plus-one differential when he’s on the ice at 5-on-5 via Natural Stat Trick. He plays with tenacity, spatial intelligence, a willingness to retrieve pucks, and his offensive game is progressing at the NHL level.

“It is always difficult with a young kid like that, but I feel like it is time for him to get a little reset here and watch a game, look at some film, and work on things,” Berube said of his decision to bench Cowan, prior to Sunday’s game. “He turned pucks over too much in the last game and was a little light in some areas.”

Cowan hasn’t been formally credited with a giveaway in his past three contests, so perhaps Berube is going off intuition alone. Max Domi was promoted to the top line, and while he recorded two shots, he committed a terrible giveaway, which led to a Mavrik Bourque goal, that the Leafs successfully challenged for offsides. Cowan is a superior player than Domi at this stage of their careers, or at least through the first 35 games of this season, and when the team desperately needed some life, energy, and perhaps some youthful bliss against the undercurrent of criticism, it was a puzzling choice from Berube.

Auston Matthews and William Nylander showed some signs of improvement during Sunday’s game, but it wasn’t still nearly good enough from the Maple Leafs’ stars. Matthews and Nylander’s lines held a cumulative 7-0 shot advantage through two periods, but it didn’t show up in the scoresheet, and there’s no way the Maple Leafs can save their season without some real offensive contributions from their best players.

Matthews missed the net off the rush during his first shift of the game, and showed more vigour than the previous two weeks.

Later in the first frame, Matthews picked off Thomas Harley and raced away for a breakaway, but was robbed on a picturesque glove save from Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger.

There was some misfortune too: Matthews’ stick imploded during the second period, when he was well-positioned for a great look in the offensive zone. And during the third period, Matthews’ offensive impact began to wane. Matthews finished the road trip without a point and a -7 rating. Although he was better on Sunday, those are unacceptable results for the Leafs’ captain with the season careening off the rails.

Nylander missed the net on a breakaway, and considering how proficient he was last year at eluding defenders, before tucking pucks home, it was a tough watch. Toronto’s star winger hasn’t scored since November 26, and it’s evidently beginning to affect his unmistakable confidence.

“For a scorer, when it is not going in, and you are getting opportunities, sometimes, you have to get around the net more and score some greasy, dirty goals,” Berube said of Nylander post-game. “That message has been said forever. That is one thing he can probably do.”

“He is getting his looks, and they are not going in, but sometimes you have to get around the net, get greasy, and score some dirty goals.”

“I don’t know if I’ve felt like this before,” Nylander said post-game.

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